Fried Okra

Back when I first started Southern Plate, I had an email from a reader asking if I could do a tutorial on fried okra. Well, y’all know I’ll eventually get to everything and here it is, the long awaited fried okra tutorial!

Fried okra is a truly delicious side dish. It seems no matter the time of year, whether it be frozen or fresh, okra always adds that “fresh from the garden” taste to any meal. Around these parts, you can find it pre-breaded in the freezer section and some places even sell cups of it hot alongside chicken nuggets and such at lunch. Although I have no complaint if I am getting okra (no matter how it is prepared), my all time favorite form of okra is prepared at home, with this recipe.

I have a funny story about okra which some of my friends from my teenage years are thinking of right now as they read this (it kind of made an impression!). When we were teens, my parents used to go out of town on the weekends a lot. My brother was around 20, I was about seventeen, and my sister was 15 at the time. Once, when they were gone to Nashville for the weekend, I decided I would invite all of my friends over and have a dinner party – dun-Dun-DUN!

This was before my cooking days had really taken off and my experience didn’t reach beyond cracker dumplings and frozen pizzas so I decided that spaghetti would be a good choice (seemed easy enough, right?). I used store bought sauce and put it on first thing in the morning, adding plenty of ground beef. However, the sauce didn’t look appealing or labor intensive enough – I wanted to fancy it up a bit and impress everyone with my grand culinary skills. I remembered my home economics teacher telling us that we should serve food in a variety of colors in order to have a more appealing meal. Well that made sense, I’ll just add some more colors to the sauce!

That evening, my friends were quite surprised (and I was confused that they weren’t as impressed as I thought they would be) when I served them spaghetti with okra and corn in the sauce! We still laugh about that and shake my head at my seventeen year old self. God love her, she had good intentions.

You’ll need: Fresh or frozen okra (I am using frozen), salt, pepper, cornmeal (self rising or plain, either is fine), and vegetable oil. If using fresh okra, go ahead and slice it up like this okra is.

Place your sliced okra in a bowl and add corn meal, salt, and pepper.

Have your grandmother stir it all up while you take a photo

(or you can just stir it up yourself – I realize not everyone has a grandmother handy!)

Place about 1/4 cup oil in skillet and heat over medium heat for three to five minutes.

Take okra out of bowl with a slotted spoon and place in heated oil.

Keep skillet on medium heat (if in a hurry, you can cook this on medium high heat, just watch it a bit closer).

Stir it occasionally (every two or three minutes) for about twenty or twenty five minutes or so, until crisp and browned.

Remove cooked okra with a slotted spoon and place into serving bowl.

DEVOUR! (This is the good stuff!)

Fried Okra

Ingredients

Approx 4 Cups Okra (fresh or frozen, sliced)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup cornmeal (self rising or plain)

¼ cup vegetable oil

Instructions

Thaw okra. Sprinkle cornmeal over okra. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir okra to cover with cornmeal. Heat approx. ¼ cup oil in skillet until hot. Dip okra from bowl with slotted spoon into oil. (Leave the extra cornmeal in the bowl and throw away.) Stir occasionally and cook until okra is brown and crisp. Take out of oil with slotted spoon.

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*Special thanks to my mother for doing this tutorial for me. I also want to thank her for driving all the way to my house to bring me her camera’s SD card when her computer had problems preventing her from emailing them.

I also want to thank her for the good laugh I got when she sent me an email last week (before her computer had issues) with these photos attached – supposedly. I opened the email this morning to do this post and found photos labeled “okra” – but they were actually from the event where my mom and dad got to meet John McCain and Sarah Palin. Mama had no idea until this morning! That was a good laugh for both of us.

My dad and Cindy McCain, who will hereafter be thought of as “Okra’s Wife”.

Comments

I live in Canada and okra is not a vegetable that is easily obtainable. I first tried it while visiting friends in Alabama and it was love at first bite. Every time I see it in the grocery stores here in Canada, I buy some. It is costly but well worth it. Keeping this recipe for the next time I get some. Thanks.

Christy, I have loved you site since first discovering it a couple of years ago. I have your cookbook, my Mother loves to read through it, & can relate to a lot of your stories. When I realized you live in Alabama, I was more thrilled, as I live in the Anniston area, actually in Alexandria, in the country. I saved the Alfa magazine with you on the cover!
Your okra (we call it okry) looks just like my Mom’s! My kids eat it almost out or the skillet, like popcorn. They will eat it cold out of the refrigerator. I can’t cook it as good as Mother, I tend to stir it too much, but I am getting better.
Loved the picture of your handsome dad with Mrs. McCain! I would have been thrilled to go to an event with Sarah Palin & Mrs. McCain, I admire bothe of them.
Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your site. I’ve cooked many of your recipes. My favorite thing is touring your kitchen. I go back to that post about once a month. I love how you explain what the items decorating your kitchen mean to you. Your collection of pyrex is to be envied!
Keep up the good cooking & posts!
Sherri Roberts

Oh my goodness Sherri, you just made my week!!! Thank you so much for all of your support and I am so glad to hear that you are enjoying the recipes, stories and the site. Please give yourself and your Momma a BIG hug from me!! I hope you have a blessed day, as much as you have blessed mine!

What a great bunch of recipes. Mother, and her 4 sisters, all “country cooks from Alabama”, added a little flour to the cornmeal. They said it helped the cornmeal stick. Love okra, but you need to wear LONG SLEEVES when you pick it.

I add a little flour tom
My cornmeal as well. When I want to cook it like my great grandmother I leave out the fliur, use little oil and it has to be in a cast iron skillet. If it isn’t a little loose and slightly charred it isn’t southern okra. Love the recipes

My hubby could eat okra everyday, no kidding. It is his favorite food. I use frozen okra that has been thawed and salted. I pour on some yellow plain cornmeal, stir and stir to coat it. I use a Fry Daddy fryer, carefully just putting in the coated okra. I cook it til it is brown and crunchy. I tried using the skillet method, but liked the fryer better. I like to eat the little pieces I call the nubbies.